The Former Adam Road Prawn Noodles at Zion Road

I was at River Valley Road this evening and had a choice between going down Killiney Road to Ken’s Ramen at Orchard Plaza or to Zion Road for the prawn noodles. Went for cheaper and good over just cheap and good. Even though it was a quiet evening at Zion Road Hawker Centre, there was still a queue of about six people when I got to the famous prawn noodle place at 7.30 pm.

It’s called Noo Cheng Adam Road Prawn Noodles (stall #4) and the 10-minute wait didn’t feel that long. It was fun peering over the shoulders of the people in front and wondering how big their orders would be. The light-hearted banter of the smiley stall holders was nice too. When I asked to take a photo, the older pointed to the younger, trying to divert the attention away from him: take his picture not mine! He also said that they day’s prawns weren’t as big as they should be because Chinese New Year was coming and big ones were hard to come by at the moment. Still, they look pretty impressive to me!

My $5 bowl of dry guotiao mian (flat rice noodles and round egg noodles together) was tossed with their special (rather spicy) chilli sauce, ketchup, deep fried lard cubes and was topped with a few slices of fried fishcake. It was pretty decent and I quickly slurped that up to get to the side bowl of prawn soup.

The three big prawns in the soup were fresh and firm. They were up to standard but let the pork rib steal the show. The two pieces of pork rib in my soup were boiled for so long that they really fell off the bone! They were tender and still very flavourful.

Now the main attraction was really the soup. It was sublime. The first taste of the soup was much better than I remembered. It was prawny, porky and peppery, all in perfect harmony. (Heheh, sorry couldn’t help myself.) The soup was simmered so long with pork ribs and bones that it was slightly cloudy. Szechuan peppercorn and whole garlic added to the depth of flavour. It was like really good bah kut teh with the added bonus of prawn in the mix.